I'm going to talk about a topic that a lot of people try to avoid, and that's feedback. I feel like a lot of designers avoid feedback, like I did many times throughout my career.
There are reasons why it could be that they're scared to have their work critiqued, possibly they don't know how to actually approach the situation with clients or team members.
Sometimes as a designer, you get so connected to your work that may seem kind of dramatic and over-the-top, but it's true. That may lead you to start making some choices that don't necessarily benefit your design process.
So I'm going to point out why it's so useful to give/receive feedback. 01. Feedback is a nice reminder that design is a craft. 02. Feedback can also help you take a step back and see your designs from a different perspective. 03. Feedback gives you new insight and approaches to design 04. Feedback really fixes that mindset and helps us to grow as a designer.
There are two types of feedback that have a significant impact on your design.
Constructive
Constructive feedbacks will help you move the design forward.
It can uncover clues to answering those open questions you may have and identify new blockers for your idea of success. So your designs may not actually solve the problem that you should be solving and you may get negative feedback. But that feedback is still good because it's going to push you in a new direction that you need to go.
Destructive
This will cloud the way your design moves forward, your design can be misled by asking unrelated questions or wasting people's time by derailing discussions.
It can be really difficult to understand what matters because there is just so much noise. This really, really happens a lot.
I feel like, especially with clients, a lot of design critiques or feedback meetings, they often get derailed because there are so many irrelevant things that are popping up that aren't really relevant to the types of problems you're trying to solve or your designs in general.
The goal is to get your group to give you constructive feedback.